FOLLOWING extreme weather and devastating wildfires, US and international scientists have issued warnings of record temperatures and worsening effects of climate change in recent weeks. August this year was the warmest August on record on the planet, and the Northern Hemisphere experienced its warmest meteorological summer, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced.

"We expect to break new records"

"Global marine heat waves and a growing El Niño are leading to additional warming this year, but as long as greenhouse gas emissions continue to fuel the steady march of background warming, we expect further records to be broken in the coming years," said NOAA Chief Scientist Sarah Kapnick. .

The third highest temperature anomaly of all recorded months

According to NOAA researchers, global surface temperatures in August were 2.25 degrees above the 20th century average of 15.6 degrees Celsius, beating the previous record, set in August 2016, by more than half a degree.

"That's a really big jump from one record to another to me," said Ellen Bartow-Gillies, a physical scientist at NOAA's National Center for Environmental Information. She noted that graphs of temperature records dating back to the 1850s show a steady rise - accelerating during the industrial era - but that August 2023 was "essentially separate".

In addition to being the warmest August in NOAA's 174 years of records, the month had the third-highest temperature anomaly of any month on record, which is third-highest than average.

The hot month continued a trend that began weeks earlier, with June and July setting monthly temperature records.

Together, June through August — the period defined as meteorological summer in the Northern Hemisphere and meteorological winter in the Southern Hemisphere — were the warmest on record. In that period, the Northern Hemisphere was 2.59 degrees above average.

Source: index.hr, Hina, 02.10.2023.